Avionics News June 2020 - 52

WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR

Continued from page 51

Anticipation ends
Pelton's decision was widely anticipated by industry
insiders and many others due in part to Wisconsin's
statewide stay-at-home orders that rendered EAA's
headquarters and world-class aviation museum
something akin to an abandoned ghost town.
And the EAA was only the latest and largest event
to fall victim of this coronavirus. Its long-anticipated
decision to pull the plug on AirVenture 2020, the 68th
if it had happened, meshed with similar decisions
dating back months, such as when the Aircraft
Electronics Association first postponed, then canceled,
its annual AEA International Convention & Trade
Show in March.
About that same time, the leadership of Lakeland,
Florida-based Sun 'n Fun pushed that show's opening date
back to early May. But a couple weeks later, as pandemic
conditions worsened, the Sun 'n Fun organization pulled
the show from the 2020 calendar year.
In addition, organizers pulled from the summer
calendar Germany's Aero Friedrichshafen and the
Farnborough International Air Show south of London.
Farnborough's dates overlapped AirVenture's dates,
relieving many exhibitors from the agony of deciding
whether to go to either.
As expected in late March, the EAA used one of its
milestone dates to assess the situation. Scheduled to
open its seven-day run on July 20, the EAA scheduled
to subject its AirVenture Oshkosh preparations to
two progress assessments, the first on May 1, and,
presuming a clean check on that Friday, another
milestone assessment on Monday, June 1.
But as May Day arrived, Mother Nature, government
agencies, local, state and federal, threw enough hurdles
across the path to AirVenture that on May 1 Pelton saw
the only logical decision and canceled, leaving another
hole in the aviation calendar. This year is the first to lack
an EAA convention since the first EAA fly-in in 1953.
And aviation is by no means the only community
feeling the effects of the coronavirus; name an activity,
sport or destination event and the coronavirus has
wreaked its damage. Also scrubbing their seasons:
Major League Baseball; the National Basketball
Association; NASCAR; and concerts, indoors and out,
were pulled from their scheduled plans. Theaters, stage
and movie, went dark. Even the Tokyo Olympic Games
were pushed back one year to 2021.
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avionics news

june

2020

Work started weeks ago ... sort of
By the first week of May, early arriving volunteers
and contract workers are usually already well along in
their preparatory work for AirVenture. For example,
among the earliest arrivals come workers from the
ranks of the myriad of avionics makers, vendors and
suppliers planning to exhibit. A typical year draws in
more than 1,000 exhibitors selling everything from
dishware, lawn sculptures and sundry other nonaeronautical items. But those non-aeronautical vendors
add up to but a minority of the vendors.
Far more vendors come to hawk their aviation
wares, be they avionics, airframe, powerplant, prop
or interior components to first-aid kits, airplane kits,
engines and props, tires, wheels and brakes, paints and
paint-design services and tools, windsocks, tugs for
light aircraft, iPad accessories and electronic flight
bag software products, and more. And preparing the
grounds for the onslaught of humans and airplanes
takes weeks, months and hundreds of thousands of
volunteers' labors.
Thousands arrive early to reunite with old friends
while they grab up premium real estate in the
numerous camping areas - among them the tens of
thousands who descend on Camp Scholler, the storied
North 40, South 40, Warbirds, Vintage, Homebuilt
and Ultralight areas. Acres upon acres of aircraft,
populated by tens of thousands of aviation enthusiasts,
pilots, spouses, families and fans of flight.
Over a 10-day span, upward of 10,000 airplanes
normally touch down at Wittman Regional Airport,
with more pilots opting to make their arrival at
airports in Fon du Lac to the south or Appleton to the
north. Vintage, antique, contemporary, amateur built,
warbirds and plane-old spam-can singles make up
those thousands of planes.
And the EAA's cancelation will send inevitable
ripples through the local economy. While a significant
portion of the Oshkosh population typically vacates the
city for a late-summer vacation, often paid for by the
income they earn from renting out their home to fly-in
people, this year many local residents withdrew their
names from the EAA housing bureau, unwilling to risk
exposure to COVID-19 by renting their homes to the
out-of-towners.
The restaurants and bars typically enjoy their best
business of the year, with a little of everything in food
available from the old-fashioned drive-in, Ardy & Ed's,
to the more upscale offerings of Chester V's, to the
innumerable corner bars scattered throughout the city.

Avionics News June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News June 2020